• Marc (unregistered)

    Wouldn't that just be Feb 19, 2008?

  • Bobble (unregistered) in reply to Marc
    Marc:
    Wouldn't that just be Feb 19, 2008?

    Knowing how hard this site tries to call even the most common sense things a WTF, yes. Although images are probably better than the typical WTFiction that gets posted every day.

  • Um (unregistered)

    The Mayo isn't an error...it's feb 19th?

  • (cs) in reply to Andy Goth
    Andy Goth:
    One time I saw the year given as "19108".

    Was that here, perhaps?

  • Rich (unregistered) in reply to Ozz
    Ozz:
    Reminds me of some items I saw in a store recently (bags of walnuts). The 'Best Before' date was Feb 29, 2009. I'm guessing they were packaged on Feb 29, 2008 and the system blindly just upped the year

    Or you see expiration dates on water... the worst thing to have is spoiled water, though it may also stop the water from being in a plastic container that may have some chemical leakage.

  • Steve (unregistered) in reply to Joseph
    Joseph:
    Nick, it doesn't matter if that Mayo expired Feb 1908 or Feb 19, 2008 because it expired a while ago. That is unless FEB1908C is month followed by year in hex... then it would be good for another 100532 years. Then again, the whole date could be in hex.
    Wrong. That's the year in Celsius.
  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to ParkinT
    ParkinT:
    I always wondered why the 'Expire' included a time. Can I really use that Mayonnaise right up until 5:04PM?

    I bought a bag of potato chips five years ago that have been sitting in my cupboard ever since. I noticed that the expiration date was given as 2008-07-02 11:20:00, so at 11:19:10 I figured I'd eat them quick while I still had 50 seconds before they went bad. But it turns out that the label was in error: they really expired at 11:19:07, so now I have a serious case of food poisoning. I think I should sue.

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to gutch
    gutch:
    That said, I'm not above a bit of infantile naming. My careful choice of name when signing up for a particular real estate newsletter still makes me smile long after the joke should have worn off: [image]

    Just for fun, on my organization's "Contact Us" page I put two email addresses: "webmaster@mycompany.com", and also "spambox@mycompany.com". Above the first I put text saying that this was the address to write for information, comments, etc. Above the second I put text saying not to send any email to this address.

    I have since received thousands of emails addressed to "spambox". I quit checking them a while ago, and got a message from our ISP saying that our mailbox was overflowing with tens of thousands of messages. My all time favorite began, "Dear Spambox: I am writing to you because you have been referred to me by ..."

  • (cs) in reply to shinobu
    shinobu:
    tgies:
    That first one is pretty dumb; it's obviously 2008-02-19. I see that format for expiration date stamps all the time.

    You missed the "C". It's obviously an unix timestamp: Fri, 29 May 2105 14:15:40.

    Afaik this one should be featured.

  • gnolm (unregistered)

    YYYY-MM-DD should be the only date format allowed ....

    I don't know how often I ran into date format incompatibilities on my job but it was way too often. It's just annoying.

    • you can sort dates as strings.
  • Reimora (unregistered) in reply to vambala

    It is a production time code, not an expiring time

  • Synchronos (unregistered) in reply to shinobu
    shinobu:
    You missed the "C". It's obviously an unix timestamp: Fri, 29 May 2105 14:15:40.

    Haven't you heard of the Y2038 problem yet? Unix timestamps are signed, therefore the date really is Tue, 22 Apr 1969 07:47:24. The mayonnaise company must have been really foregoing to have implemented the unix timestamps on their packing line even before the epoch.

  • Synchronos (unregistered) in reply to Reimora
    Reimora:
    It is a production time code, not an expiring time

    So the mayonnaise is best if used even before it is produced? Well yes, I could agree it is true on some products (some of my cookings, for example).

  • (cs) in reply to DaveK
    DaveK:
    Andy Goth:
    One time I saw the year given as "19108".
    Was that here, perhaps?
    No, but that's pretty good too. I saw it on a laser tag score card. It was spelled all the way out, as in "July 02, 19108".
  • EtHeO (unregistered) in reply to vambala

    What bothers me most is that even the expiration time is given, but not the exact date (unless, of course, the C means 12)

  • ItIsntAWTF (unregistered)

    It's relative to the date of using it. You can't pick either of the two dates; you need to pick the date that is next relative to the day of filing. They expressed it in a more legalese or accountant style, but it's correct and is the correct way to express it.


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  • (cs) in reply to Synchronos
    Synchronos:
    Reimora:
    It is a production time code, not an expiring time

    So the mayonnaise is best if used even before it is produced? Well yes, I could agree it is true on some products (some of my cookings, for example).

    Is this like when you're baking a cake, and the cake mixture is a lot sweeter and nicer than the actual cake you end up with?

  • (cs) in reply to Stewie
    Stewie:
    One time I saw the year given as "19108".

    Actually, that is probably day 191 of 2008.

    Ian

    More probalby "19" + "99", 19 + "100", ..., 19 + "108"

  • (cs) in reply to gnolm
    gnolm:
    YYYY-MM-DD should be the only date format allowed ....

    I don't know how often I ran into date format incompatibilities on my job but it was way too often. It's just annoying.

    • you can sort dates as strings.

    Seconded. I have made it a habit when someone sends me a file with the wrong date format I rename it to YYYY-MM-DD when saving so that it will sort properly.

  • Dennis (unregistered) in reply to leppie

    The real WTF is when the expiration date is "FEB2008". On some items that means "Feb 2008" and others "Feb 20, 2008". Only by comparing like items with different expiration dates can one decipher which is meant. If you also see one that says "MAR2008" and you can't find anything like "FEB1908" then you've narrowed down the possibilities.

    I recently saw some yogurt* that said "JUN09". Only by comparison was I able to be sure.

    *Firefox didn't like "yoghurt".

  • Danny (unregistered) in reply to vambala

    Actually, since it's hard to make it from one time zone to the other in time, the only ones who could make it worthwile to make it last longer are Aussies, Kiwis and Japanese (the Chinese won't share with the West anyway). They can just mail it by airmail to California or whatever and thus make it go back about 24 timezones in a short period of time.

  • (cs) in reply to Synchronos
    Synchronos:
    shinobu:
    You missed the "C". It's obviously an unix timestamp: Fri, 29 May 2105 14:15:40.

    Haven't you heard of the Y2038 problem yet? Unix timestamps are signed, therefore the date really is Tue, 22 Apr 1969 07:47:24. The mayonnaise company must have been really foregoing to have implemented the unix timestamps on their packing line even before the epoch.

    My first thought was indeed that the number looks like a 32bit hex number. As unix timestamps are signed, but the mayo didn't look like being produced before the 70's i just assumed it must be a 64bit timestamp. I mean, what would you do, if you were to produce ultra-nonperishable mayo?

  • (cs) in reply to Iris
    Iris:
    The mayo's not a Y2K bug.

    That's a 'We're too cheap to put in a printer that will print the extra 2 digits' bug.

    These are not your cheap home printers. The print head is typically a big chunk of precision-machined stainless steel, and comes in say one inch, two inch and four inch sizes. The datapath electronics is also non-trivial for the line speeds these things run at. So going from a one inch model to a two inch could well cost hundreds, or maybe thousands, of dollars.

  • Mikolaj (unregistered) in reply to dkf

    You don't need atomic clock (any clock) if you have a GPS receiver.

  • Mikolaj (unregistered) in reply to dkf
    dkf:
    Drved:
    How does the mayo know to expire at exactly 05:31? Is that local time, GMT, or the time zone of the manufacturing plant?
    Local time. The mayo jar has an atomic clock and GPS built into it.
    You don't need atomic clock (any clock) if you have a GPS receiver.
  • mathmoi (unregistered) in reply to Drved
    Drved:
    How does the mayo know to expire at exactly 05:31? Is that local time, GMT, or the time zone of the manufacturing plant?

    The hour on the expey date is used to relate this mayo to a lot started (or finished or whatever) at 05:31 x months before 2008-02-19.

  • Bill Drissel (unregistered) in reply to dkf

    Does anyone - repeat ANYONE - think the cartoons are:

    • funny
    • amusing
    • instructive
    • ironic

    Have any redeeming qualities? They remind me of the jokes my kids tried to invent when they turned ten.

    My advice: lose them (unless your wife draws them)

    Bill Drissel [email protected]

  • ObliqueApproach (unregistered)

    Wait... How can searching for iraq war result in a War in Iraq sponsored link? I suspect some creative photoshopping.

  • 008 (unregistered) in reply to ObliqueApproach

    The search query: iraq war means to search for articles containing the words "iraq" and "war" in no particular order when submitted to Google... If the search query was "iraq war" (with quotes), your photoshop assumption would be valid.

  • Maxpaynner (unregistered) in reply to vambala
    vambala:
    dkf:
    Drved:
    How does the mayo know to expire at exactly 05:31? Is that local time, GMT, or the time zone of the manufacturing plant?
    Local time. The mayo jar has an atomic clock and GPS built into it.

    Exactly. So if you realize that your mayo just expired a few minutes ago you should very quickly send it to someone who lives in a different time zone. (in western direction). Then it will be usable again for a short time...

    Or you can put it in a rocket flying at twice the speed of light into a wormhole, that should send it back in time and thus make it usable for milenia! Or you could simply use missiles to shoot down the GPS satelites, that should do the trick...

  • Maxpaynner (unregistered) in reply to Mikolaj
    Mikolaj:
    dkf:
    Drved:
    How does the mayo know to expire at exactly 05:31? Is that local time, GMT, or the time zone of the manufacturing plant?
    Local time. The mayo jar has an atomic clock and GPS built into it.
    You don't need atomic clock (any clock) if you have a GPS receiver.

    Wrong! the GPS sistem fuctions by measuring the time diference between the place where you are and the GPS satellites (I assume that they have a stetionary orbit), thus triangulating your position, whithout a clock built into the receivers they would be useless... DUH! ;)

  • (cs) in reply to tgies
    tgies:
    That first one is pretty dumb; it's obviously 2008-02-19. I see that format for expiration date stamps all the time.

    Hmm, where do you come from? Is this not forbidden in your country?

  • (cs) in reply to Cursorkeys
    Cursorkeys:
    Drved:
    How does the mayo know to expire at exactly 05:31?

    Expiry dates really annoy me. We have people here that try and throw milk out just because 'the label says it's off'... suggest to them that they smell or taste it first and they look at you aghast.

    I don't know why the pot of honey I bought yesterday has a date at all, it's never going to bloody well go off.

    Then you have not yet seen that even mere kitchen salt has an expiry date. It has been lying around in the ground (well, stone salt, of course) for several million years but something like one year after you bought it it has turned bad. Nearly the same is true for water but since it often comes in plastic bottles, this can actually be understood. I'm sure, there are more examples like that. And there are people at work who put their sandwiches in the fridge from 9 to 12 (which makes its consistency go from crusty/crunchy to rubber-like) but people are actually afraid that after 3 hours their sandwich could be full of bacteria, funghi, and I don't know what, and aarrrrrggggggghhh.

  • (cs) in reply to D0R
    D0R:
    I was writing my comment at the same time as Pitchingchris -- he was in advance of five mins, though ;-)

    And hence, your comment has expired...

  • (cs) in reply to leppie
    leppie:
    Once again, idiots cant read. FEB1908 is 19 February 2008. If you want to be stupid, please return to the 20th century...

    Just get your date format the right way, and that is dd.mm.yyyy

  • Tanveer Badar (unregistered)

    There is nothing wrong with Contivity VPN Client. It simply shows VPN connection name after 'Disconnect'. That particular user had named it "Europe and Middle East".

  • Dieter (unregistered) in reply to Joseph
    Joseph:
    That is unless FEB1908C is month followed by year in hex... then it would be good for another 100532 years. Then again, the whole date could be in hex.
    Maybe "FEB1908C" is completely in HEX format?!
  • Dieter (unregistered) in reply to Joseph
    Joseph:
    That is unless FEB1908C is month followed by year in hex... then it would be good for another 100532 years. Then again, the whole date could be in hex.
    Maybe "FEB1908C" is completely in HEX format?!
  • Matt Varney (unregistered)

    The Radio Shack guy seems to have taken a digital picture of his screen...

  • this website sucks (unregistered)

    Wow.. you have to be a fucking idiot not to realize the expiration date is in DDYY format. Go end yourself now.

  • Cheapie (unregistered)

    FEB1908 = February 19, 2008

  • NSKShadrach (unregistered)

    Actually that is February 19, 208

  • Rob (unregistered)

    To me that looks like: Best if used by Feb 19th 2008

    And the 05:31 is probably the date by which it must be used/thrown out, May 31.

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